FATIMA ESPINEDA

It is true – Rutger Bregman’s ‘Humankind’ is a hopeful, breath of fresh air especially at this day and age where cynicism and negativity are the mindsets we come across on a usual basis.

The book talks about how the emergence of farming, agriculture, and permanent settlement was the death of humanity’s best traits – trustworthiness, generosity, and kindness. Our brains have always been wired to be trusting, generous, and kind as these were the qualities that allowed our species to survive the nomadic life. In a big and unfamiliar world, we used to depend on other people regardless of their knowledge and intention because it is all what we had – each other.

Unfortunately, settling down permanently to acquire land and learn farming brought out the worst in us. It made us selfish and short-sighted as we only see the resources that are close to us. It made us doubtful of other people because we think they are out there to compete against in the hopes of acquiring more. It made us guarded, making us see only the worst in people because of our fear of not getting what we feel is rightfully ours.

These undesirable traits are what shaped modern civilization – the bedrock of democracy, capitalism, education, and religion. We use these to sow fear and contempt amongst people to make them cooperate because if we discover that humans are innately good and intrinsically motivated, things will run its course without the need for people to herd us to the ‘right’ path. The people who established these systems say they want to ‘discipline’ us and ‘curb our selfishness’, but in fact, they just want to get ahead of us by pitting us against each other. These so-called leaders won’t be able to run their agenda back when we were still living a nomadic life because they were considered outcasts and anyone displaying these selfish motives and traits were automatically penalized.

Bregman debunked a lot of respectable studies with historical facts and uncovered a handful of rigged scientific experiments that were considered revolutionary for centuries, like The Stanford Prison Experiment by Philip Zimbardo, the Broken Window Theory by James Wilson, as well as the real story behind Easter Island. These well-known studies have been faked by people who want to be recognized in their respective fields as they know that if they presented what REALLY happened, (read: people who actually acted kindly and nicely towards each other), it would not get picked up by respectable journals and prestigious media outlets.

These studies have been the basis of many successful institutions to justify why people should doubt each other. But this book uncovered, with real, hard facts, that people are born and hard-wired to be good. When we trust in humanity’s kindness and generosity, acts of goodness will snowball from there and can create true change in society as a whole.

Aside from inciting so many positive feelings and thoughts, Humankind is well written it makes such an easy read even if it uses a lot of scientific evidences to prove a point. This book is a light at the end of this seemingly never-ending tunnel that we have been living in, allowing us to see hope amidst a world that continues to be built around pessimism.

Despite being released way back in 1992, Neil Postman’s Technopoly has accurately and chillingly predicted the dire effects of mismanaged influx of information brought about by the exponential growth of technology.

While tech has paved the way for people to realize that the world can and should be better, it has become totalitarian due to its lack of management and regulation. It has invisibly taken over our lives, altering what used to be true in religion, politics, art, history — basically in all facets of culture.

Humans have become too dependent on technology that we’ve come to lose our trust in ourselves. All information, theories, and philosophies brought about by centuries of technological development have made us believe that we are imperfect and fallible – the exact opposite of what tech is, which is dependable, predictable, and measurable.

Tech is designed to continuously unearth myriads of information that will overwhelm us, while humans are trying to catch up in comprehending the purpose of these data. The book asserts that information, without regulation, can be lethal. Until governments and institutions find effective and lightning-fast ways to come up with these policies, it is up to us as individuals to be more discerning and critical of information made available to us.

Human intelligence, unlike AI, is multidimensional and nontransferable. We have a unique, biologically-rooted, and intangible mental life that machines can never duplicate as these are driven by feelings and ideas. This unique facet is what drives creativity, judgment, and connection.

Schools of the future should be centered on ideas and coherence in order to develop the soft skills that will enable humans to sift through and make sense of data downloaded to them. In doing so, we are able to transcend our weaknesses by using tech and all the information we consume to address higher order, existential needs.

This book is a must read if you enjoyed the Netflix documentary, ‘The Social Dilemma’.

As a minimalist being stuck on lock down, I sure have been blessed with so much free time to learn and do new things I would not normally do if life was still the way it was pre-COVID-19. I’ve been reading and learning a lot about how this pandemic will change the future of work and the changes we have to go through to remain functional as a society. With social distancing and remote work being practiced globally, the imminent use of AI in all aspects of our lives will be accelerated in the coming months. Aside from the fact that AIs won’t be infected with the virus, it is the most cost-efficient way to ensure business continuity especially for companies who heavily rely on processes that can be automated like book-keeping, proofreading, transportation services, and many others. Although despite that, I still believe that AI will not be able to take over most of the jobs known to man because there are still a lot of things they cannot do that require humanistic qualities.

Since the beginning of time, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been portrayed as humanity’s greatest enemy. We are threatened by their existence because they are everything we are not – objective, obedient, stoic. People have a hard time becoming those three things because we are highly emotional beings. In the work setting, showing too much feelings is frowned upon because it is a sign of instability and helplessness. Not gaining control of ones’ emotions is a sign of incompetence because we tend to be irrational and unproductive when our moods take over. At the end of the day, our employers just need results – nothing personal, it’s just business.

However, I believe our feelings and emotions are not a disadvantage because it is for this reason that we continue searching for better and greater things. Humanity’s drive for growth and excellence are the reasons why we came up with AI to begin with. People want more output in a shorter amount of time so they can do more meaningful things outside of work, like spending time with family and honing a creative skill. As time progresses and AIs become more sophisticated, we will learn what things they can do better than us. We should not see this as a negative situation where they will eventually take over our jobs and the world. Instead, we should see this as an opportunity to evolve into higher, more complex human beings.

For people to grow into more multi-faceted and multi-talented beings, there is a need to revamp and overhaul the educational system to teach them how to best use their emotions in more strategic and productive ways. We would normally deal with our feelings in disparaging methods, thereby making us useless and dysfunctional. While it is part of human nature, it is the role of educational systems to future-proof humans by teaching us how to re-channel that emotional energy into improving global well-being. People should be taught how to manage and understand their emotions so they can have control and clarity on the effects it has on our lives and how it can be used as opportunities for growth. Having that ability to dissect and understand emotions will enable us to better manage our personal well-being while also allowing us to look for creative, human-centered solutions to global problems. In doing so, we ensure that the things we are doing and the jobs we are generating are indispensable and purposeful.

AIs will not eliminate all meaningful jobs because it is us, humans, who put meaning and value in jobs. Meaningfulness, like feelings, is subjective. If we feel that what we are doing is still needed by society and no other person (or robot) can do it better than us, then that just shows how important our work is. Humanity’s ever-changing needs and wants dictate what is deemed essential in the world, and if we upgrade our capabilities and skills depending on that, we will never be replaceable and useless. As long as we put global well-being at the core of what we do, we will always find ways to stay relevant and needed.